Category: Conservative Review
Packed churches, skyrocketing conversions: Is New York undergoing a Catholic renaissance?
The years-long trend of American de-Christianization recently came to an end, with the Christian share of the U.S. population stabilizing at roughly six in ten Americans, according to Pew Research Center data. Of the 62% of adults who now identify as Christians, 40% are Protestants, 19% are Catholics, and 3% belong to other Christian denominations.
There are signs in multiple jurisdictions pointing to something greater than a mere stabilization under way — at least where the Catholic Church is concerned.
The New York Post recently found that multiple New York City Catholic parishes have not only seen a spike in conversions but their churches routinely fill to the brim. That’s likely good news for the Archdiocese of New York, which was found in a recent Catholic World Report analysis to have been among the 10 least fruitful dioceses in 2023 in terms of baptism, conversion, seminarian, and wedding rates.
‘We’ve got a real booming thing happening here.’
Fr. Jonah Teller, the Dominican parochial vicar at Saint Joseph’s in Greenwich Village, told the Post that the number of catechumens enrolled in his parish’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults for the purposes of conversion has tripled since 2024, with around 130 people signing up.
Over on the Upper East Side, St. Vincent Ferrer has seen its numbers double since last year, jumping to 90 catechumens. The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral has reportedly also seen its numbers double, ballooning to around 100 people. The Diocese of Brooklyn doubled its 2023 numbers last year when it welcomed 538 adults into the faith and expects the numbers to remain high again this year.
Attendance in New York City reportedly skyrocketed in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was apparently attending mass with his Catholic wife, Erika, and their children.
RELATED: Charity, miracles, and high tech — here’s how these monks built a massive Gothic monastery
Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
“We’re out of space and exploring adding more masses,” Fr. Daniel Ray, a Catholic Legionary priest in Manhattan, told the Post. “We’ve got a real booming thing happening here, and it’s not because of some marketing campaign.”
While a number of catechumens cited Kirk’s assassination as part of what drove them to the Catholic Church, others cited a a desire for a life- and family-strengthening relationship with God; a desire to partake in the joy observed in certain devout Catholics; a desire for community; a desire for “guardrails”; and a desire for anchorage and meaning in a chaotic world where politics has become a substitute for faith.
“My generation is watching things fall apart,” Kiegan Lenihan, a catechumen in the OCIA at St. Joseph’s told the Post. “When things all seem to be going wrong in greater society, maybe organized religion isn’t that bad.”
Lenihan, a 28-year-old software engineer, spent a portion of his youth reading the works of atheist intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. After experiencing an anxiety-induced crisis at school, he apparently sought out something of greater substance, devouring the works of Marcus Aurelius. He found that his life still lacked greater meaning despite achieving material success.
‘The Catholic Church is a place of sanity.’
“I realized on paper, I had everything I wanted, but I had no fulfillment in my soul,” said Lenihan, who remedied the problem by turning to Christ.
Liz Flynn, a 35-year-old Brooklyn carpenter who is in OCIA at Old St. Patrick’s, previously sought relief for her anxiety and depression in self-help books and dabbled in “pseudo spiritualism.”
After finding a book about God’s unconditional love for his children in a gift shop during a road-trip stop at Cracker Barrel, she began praying the rosary and developed an appreciation for Catholicism.
“I’m happier and calmer than I’ve ever been,” Flynn told the Post. “Prayer has made an enormous impact on my life.”
New York City is hardly the only diocese enjoying an explosion in conversions.
The National Catholic Register reported in April that numerous dioceses across the country were seeing substantial increases in conversions. For instance:
- the Diocese of Cleveland was on track to have 812 converts at Easter 2025 — 50% more than in 2024 and about 75% more than in 2023;
- the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, expected 56% more converts in 2025 (607) than in 2024 (388);
- the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, was expected to see a year-over-year doubling of conversions;
- the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, was expected to see a 59% year-over-year increase;
- the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska, was set for a 45% increase;
- the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, was expecting a 39% increase in converts; and
- the Archdiocese of Los Angeles noted a 44% increase in adult converts.
Besides the Holy Spirit, the conversions were attributed to the National Eucharistic Revival, immigration, and evangelization.
Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg told the Register that people are flocking to the church because it stands as a bulwark against the madness of the age.
“I think the perception of the Catholic Church is changing,” said Bishop Berg. “In a world of insanity, I think that people are noticing that the Catholic Church is a place of sanity.”
“For 2,000 years, you know, through a lot of turbulent times — and the Church has been through turbulent times — we still stand as the consistent teacher of the faith of Christ,” continued Berg. “The people are intrigued by that.”
As of March, 20% of Americans described themselves as Catholics, putting the number of Catholic adults at around 53 million nationwide.
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When a ‘too big to fail’ America meets a government too broke to bail it out
I’ve been titanically bearish on America for years. Sorry. I can do math.
The United States owes more than $38 trillion. That alone makes the balance sheet hopeless. The debt is insurmountable.
America’s GDP in 2024 was $29.2 trillion, meaning the debt exceeds 130% of what we produce in a year. If this were a business, every financial adviser would tell you to file Chapter 11 and salvage what you can.
Washington keeps adding another trillion to the tab roughly every 100 days. As the debt climbs, interest payments climb faster. The country now spins in a debt spiral that ends only one way. Game over.
The more the world moves away from the dollar, the more tens of trillions of unwanted dollars come flooding home. You haven’t seen anything like real devaluation yet.
Then comes the $210 trillion in future unfunded liabilities — mostly Social Security and Medicare. Those numbers don’t pencil out in any universe.
Underneath all of it sits a sinking currency. The dollar lost 87% of its value since we abandoned the gold standard in 1971. For decades, the petrodollar arrangement held the world in our system by forcing oil purchases through the U.S. currency. Saudi Arabia let that mandate expire last year. Global energy deals immediately began shifting to other currencies.
The more the world moves away from the dollar, the more tens of trillions of unwanted dollars come flooding home. You haven’t seen anything like real devaluation yet.
To fund our binge, Washington must keep selling treasuries. But foreign buyers are losing interest. Rates rise. The government buys its own debt just to keep markets from buckling. The Cayman Islands now holds $1.85 trillion — the largest single foreign share and rising fast. Treasury officials tried to obscure the numbers. None of it signals stability.
Meanwhile, our economy rests on an absurdly fragile foundation: 70% consumption. Seven out of 10 dollars depend on Americans buying things they can no longer afford. Household debt hit a record $18.6 trillion — nearly two-thirds of GDP. Families now pay down debt instead of fueling growth.
Shrinking consumption means a shrinking economy. Shrinking economy means shrinking tax revenue. Combine that with a weakening dollar and the picture becomes darker still.
Enter artificial intelligence, the accelerant. AI threatens tens of millions of jobs within years, wiping out income and collapsing the consumption model even faster. A government facing falling revenue and exploding obligations cannot pretend to stay solvent.
Some cling to fantasies like universal basic income. With what money? The same government already $210 trillion short on existing promises? Please.
This all points toward an economic crash far larger than 2008. Washington froze that crisis with $29 trillion in bailouts — money it didn’t have then either. We conjured it and shoved it onto the national debt.
That option is gone.
Today the government sits too deep in debt, with a weaker dollar and fewer global buyers. And the next crisis won’t hit one sector. It hits everything:
• Record mortgage debt: $13.1 trillion
• Record credit-card debt: $1.2 trillion
• Collapsing commercial real estate: $4.9 trillion
• Big Tech borrowing hundreds of billions to inflate an AI bubble
OpenAI’s Sam Altman already expects an eventual government bailout for AI’s collapse.
RELATED: When the AI bubble bursts, guess who pays
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Total U.S. debt — public and private — hit $102.2 trillion in 2024. Washington cannot rescue a single major sector, let alone all of them. The national debt was $10 trillion during bailout 2008. It’s four times that now. The dollar buys less. Foreign creditors show less patience.
So who steps in next time? Who buys the treasuries? Who absorbs the losses?
No one. Not abroad. Not at home. Nowhere on this planet.
That leaves Washington with only one move: Print tens of trillions in new dollars and hand them to itself — more IOIs (as opposed to IOUs) stacked on a pile already ready to topple.
And that printing wave will obliterate whatever value the dollar still holds.
Think the dollar’s fallen far? You haven’t seen anything yet.
UK woman said she wanted to be tortured and killed on fetish site — her body was found in shallow grave in the US
The boyfriend of a woman who allegedly paid someone to torture and kill her said that she had been suffering from mental illness before the shocking events, according to Florida authorities.
Sonia Exelby was reported missing in October before police were able to trace her to an Airbnb in Reddick and found her remains nearby.
‘I’m so, so scared. I’m so broken and in so much pain. … I thought he’d do it quick and not give my mind time to stew.’
Exelby boarded a flight to Florida and arrived on Oct. 10, according to an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The FDLE said that Exelby posted on a fetish website that she was willing to pay someone to torture and kill her.
A week after she arrived in Florida, her remains were found in a shallow grave.
Investigators linked her to a man named Dwain Hall, who had used her bank card and tried to use her credit cards.
When they interviewed him, he gave conflicting accounts of how they met.
Police said they gathered evidence pointing to Hall as Exelby’s alleged killer.
Authorities said Hall purchased rope and gun cleaner among other items at a Walmart in Gainesville on Oct. 10. After that purchase, he made a second purchase of a shovel. He then allegedly went to pick up Exelby at the airport, and they both went to an Airbnb that he had rented.
The next day, he charged $1,200 to Exelby’s bank card.
Authorities said he recorded a video of Exelby showing her with cuts and bruises, and asking her to say that she consented to being stabbed.
Exelby sent a message to a friend via the Discord app expressing regret.
“I’m so, so scared. I’m so broken and in so much pain. … I thought he’d do it quick and not give my mind time to stew,” she wrote.
On Oct. 14, Hall allegedly sent a package to a friend that authorities said contained a knife that had traces of Exelby’s blood. It also had a bracelet with DNA from both Exelby and Hall.
Police also said the shovel Hall purchased matched the one they found at Exelby’s grave site.
Hall was initially arrested for fraud in relation to his alleged use of Exelby’s financial cards, but those charges were dropped when he was charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder.
U.K. law enforcement said that Exelby sought someone to kill her in 2024, but she obtained mental health treatment instead after the attempt was thwarted.
Hall allegedly told police he was upset because she promised to pay him $4K, but he only received $1.2K.
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EPSTEIN’S MISS! Crockett Roasted for House Floor Epstein BOTCH, ‘She Should Get Censured For This’
Well, that was embarrassing.
JASMINE THE ‘GENIUS’: Lee Zeldin Torches Texas Rep After Bogus Epstein Claim
Better check those records again.
Florida Congresswoman Indicted for Stealing $5 Million in Taxpayer Funds To Bankroll Her Campaign
A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D., Fla.) and her brother on Wednesday for allegedly laundering millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to her political campaign in 2021, money she then used to win a seat in Congress by just five votes.
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